Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 622

Who Will Be The Party of Uber?

Republican presidential candidates are unfairly claiming Uber for the GOP. At least, so says a New York Times editorial, in which Vikas Bajaj argues that there’s no good reason to believe that Republicans are the friends of the so-called “gig economy” while Democrats are its enemy. More:

Conservatives are just as likely as liberals to find themselves on the other side of a company like Uber. For example, Mayor Boris Johnson of London, a Tory, proposed restrictions on Uber’s growth earlier this year. In Philadelphia, a regulatory board appointed by the state and made up primarily of Republicans has decided that the company’s popular UberX service is illegal […]

But in some policy areas, the interests of Uber are more closely aligned with Democrats than they are with Republicans. Mr. Kalanick, for example, has gushed about the benefits of President Obama’s health care reform law, which Republicans love to hate [

This editorial does suggest one truth: Neither party has (yet) made the gig economy into the kind of winning political issue it could be. But the reasons are more complicated, and, in the end, more favorable to the GOP, than the piece suggests.

The conflicts over the so-called “gig economy” aren’t just about Uber or AirBnB or any one company, but about a whole new kind of economy focused around freelancing and service jobs. This economy is already coming, and, as it does, 21st-century trends are colliding with 20th-century institutions. Established business interests naturally have a stake in maintaing the status quo, and they have the political power to influence regulators and politicians. Thus Democrats and Republicans alike will be pushed by existing companies to limit the growth of the gig economy, and we can expect both parties sometimes to yield to that pressure and sometimes not to, as competing forces shake out.But political parties that understand the wider issues at stake here can indeed make headway with a younger electorate that is at home in the new economy and protective of the benefits it brings. That goes for either party, but, contra the editorial, making that pitch is a more natural fit for the Republicans than the Democrats. On both this issue and on school choice, millennials appear naturally friendly to the policy of “more options and less regulation”, and the GOP is the party that more vocally preaches that laissez-faire message. Democrats trying to shore up life-long blue employment by coming down on the gig economy will find themselves working against the interests of two core constituencies—young people and ethnic minorities—who are increasingly embracing it and the opportunities it offers. It’s true, as the editorial argues, that there is no simple line between liking Uber and voting for a Republican candidate; there are not likely to be many single issue AirBnB voters. But young people who enjoy the service economy and the options it offers are apt to be friendlier towards laissez-faire rhetoric and policy than they would have been if they had never encountered these new services, and the GOP naturally stands to gain in the long run from that kind of shift.For Republicans to reap the full rewards of backing the gig economy, however, they have to do more than just cheer deregulation; they also need a positive vision for what a social system of support looks like for workers. As the editorial points out, Obamacare is a prime case. Whatever else the ACA may have done (and we are on record pointing out its failures), one thing it did do right was make insurance coverage less tied to employment, so that it’s become easier for people in new kinds of employment situations to get insurance. Future health reforms need to protect and extend that. Nor is it only health insurance at issue. Our tax system punished low and middle income who are self-employed, for example, and retirement is harder for the self-employed as well.Both parties need to think about how to support workers as the 21st-century economy takes shape, and if Republicans can do that, as well as push for a regulatory light touch, then they really might become the party of Uber, after all.

Opera Dicta

Scalia/Ginsburg, a tuneful, well-constructed, and most importantly funny operetta by Derrick Wang that premiered at the Castleton Festival in Virginia on July 11, bids fair to find a lasting place in the American opera and operetta repertoire—and suggests that those of us who fear for the demise of this art might be a bit hasty. Wang, a musician, poet, and lawyer, served as his own librettist; only 31, he bears watching.

Comic opera and the courts have a long history together. Some of Gilbert and Sullivan’s funniest and best-written moments skewered the legal system, particularly in Trial by Jury and Iolanthe; ninety-eight years after the latter was written, William Rehnquist, a passionate G&S fan and then an associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, read it into the U.S. legal canon by opening his dissent Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia by quoting the Lord Chancellor’s entrance aria:

The Law is the true embodiment

Of everything that’s excellent,

It has no kind of fault or flaw

And I, my Lords, embody the Law.

“It is difficult not to derive more than a little of this flavor from the various opinions supporting the judgment in this case,” Rehnquist added scathingly. Later, when Chief Justice, Rehnquist would add three gold stripes to each sleeve of his robes after being captivated by the look of the Lord Chancellor’s costume in a community theater production. And both Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg are opera buffs, as well as (many are surprised to learn) close friends out of chambers.

So Wang’s concept did not come out of the blue, but rather is the newest entry in a long, distinguished dialogue. Our story in brief: Scalia (sung by tenor John Overholt), working late in the court one night, has had enough of his fellow judges’ loose attitude toward the Constitution. But just as he’s working up yet another impassioned dissent, one of the court’s statues bursts into life, proclaiming that it is a “celestial bureaucrat” (bass-baritone Adam Cioffari) sent to weigh Justice Scalia’s worth against the annoyance of his incessant dissenting. The chamber is sealed and the trial is about to start when Justice Ginsberg (Ellen Wieser, in a powerful yet lucid soprano) drops in, literally—not the first time in her life, as she points out, that she’s broken through a ceiling. Her stubborn refusal to leave prompts the otherworldly judge to try them both, first by making them defend their legal philosophies, and then (the harder challenge by far?) by forcing them to remain silent as he attacks them. Both hold their peace, though twitchily, as they are assailed with the usual charges—you only did what was convenient, you’re making it up as you go along, you hypocrites! Eventually the judge starts simply chanting  “Bush v. Gore, Bush v. Gore, Bush v. Gore…” and Scalia bursts from his seat singing, “Oh, get over it!” (This brought down the house, though I doubt it would have ten years ago.) The Judge condemns him to a place where “words have no meaning.” (Wang updated his libretto as recently as June to reflect the new Obamacare and gay marriage rulings). Scalia refuses to repent, but Ginsburg proclaims that she too must be sent there if Nino is to go: as they’re both members of the court, they can speak with one voice. (So that’s what it takes to get Ginsburg to join a Scalia dissent—actual hellfire.) They join in a duet, “We are different. We are one”, reflecting on how their seemingly opposing strands of thought actually keep the Court going and uphold the American way. Impressed, the judge rewards them for their friendship with actual operatic talent, something that both justices have lamented, in real life and in the script, that they lack.

I remarked to a friend of mine upon entering that Scalia/Ginsburg was likely to stand or fall on two considerations: whether the music was enjoyable, and whether it could give enough weight and balance to Justice Scalia’s point of view to be funny rather than a political screed. (It goes without saying I was not apprehensive that the arts crowd, and Justice Ginsburg herself, would turn out for a musical version of Scalia’s King dissent.) I must confess, from experience with both the output and the politics of the modern music scene, I did not have my hopes set too high.

How delightfully wrong I was. The music proved accessible and fun; more surprisingly, despite the overall soft-left leanings of the production, Scalia’s position was given a full-throated voicing, and was depicted in ways that were as American as they were authentically conservative.

Most importantly of all, Scalia/Ginsburg works as opera. When Scalia came in, his opening aria was Handel-like, but with passages interspersed of “The Star Spangled Banner” and Christmas music—which is to say, conservative, ordered, and with a regard for patriotism and traditional religion: the perfect (as well as pleasant and accessible) musical evocation of Justice Scalia. When Ginsberg entered, she opened with a more freely-structured aria, with lots of ascending scales, that quoted Ella Fitzgerald and swing music: It was race- and class-conscious, self-consciously feminist, aspirational, and attuned to changing times. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with that characterization of her politics or not—that’s how Ginsburg sees herself, so that’s how the music portrays her. And that’s good opera.

The composer/librettist made extensive use of quotations, both musical and judicial, in ways that won’t impede audience members not steeped in either field, but which deliciously reward those who are. When the celestial judge challenges Scalia, he replies, “My friends call me Nino” to the tune of Si, mi chiamano Mimi—timid, doomed, little Mimi’s aria from La Boheme. Then, when the Judge asks, “And I?”, he replies in a harsh tone, “… Call me Justice Scalia.” Asked when feminists will finally be happy, Ginsberg replies, “When we are paid, are paid our worth” to the strains of Dido’s lament, “When I am laid in earth,” from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. And then there are the legal references: fans of Scalia’s dissents will know where he’s coming from when he describes the celestial bureaucrat’s opinions, mid-aria, as “pure applesauce” and, as for the judge himself, “this wolf comes as a wolf.” At one point, Scalia is offered some refreshments, but refuses a Frankfurter and a Burger because they are not to his taste. This is just a sample: the annotated libretto has hundreds of musical and legal footnotes, and was published in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts with a preface by Scalia and Ginsburg themselves. (The production also enjoyed previews at the Supreme Court, the Second Circuit Judicial Conference and Stanford Law School before its premiere at Castleton.)

This isn’t to say there’s no original music—there is, a lot of it—just that Scalia/Ginsburg contains some great Easter eggs. When I spoke to Wang after the performance, he pointed out that both law and musical composition are (or should rightly be) built on precedent, a commonality he wanted his opera to reflect. Smart, humble composer; smart, humble opera. In not trying to render Mozart obsolete in a single stroke, Wang actually goes well past what many of his more lauded contemporaries have been able to do.

The opera strikes only a couple of false notes. The most obvious—but the most easily remedied—is that the last piece is a digression into the life Justice Ginsberg shares with her husband and her penchant for cooking. It’s a series of food/music puns that comes out of nowhere and feels tacked-on. The natural conclusion to the work comes right before: a “transformation” scene reminiscent of the end of Gilbert and Sullivan’s first surviving operetta, Trial by Jury, in which the other statues in the Supreme Court (who serve as a mute chorus throughout) become the Justices’ backup dancers as the plot resolves on a note of patriotism and comity. While the “Frozen lime souffle” ditty is clever, it comes across as self-indulgent (it actually begins “Wait! One last thing”), and upsets the overall symmetry of the opera. The upbeat chorus that concludes Don Giovanni is sometimes omitted; the same may happen to Scalia/Ginsburg’s finale in the future, with good effect.

The other problem, by contrast, is what we don’t hear: Despite the overall enjoyability and sophistication of the music, there’s no single tune that the audience could have walked out whistling. Admittedly, it’s been almost a century since opera did that sort of thing; I can’t remember a tune from L’Heure Espagnole, either, which formed the first half of the night’s bill—and that’s by Ravel! But until we do get back to that—until audiences again leave operas humming, the way my great-grandmother left Turandot (and my mother left Star Wars, more to the point)—opera is unlikely to become a popular art form again. One of Wang’s pieces came close—Scalia’s aria, “He built stairs”, in which he compares the conservative ideal of law by ordered rule to his father’s trade (both allow “freedom with a frame… to aim/for something ever higher”). Something was just a little off, though, that prevented it from being a true earworm—I’m afraid I can’t say quite what, or I’d be on the other side of the composer’s pen. But the music world could use more near-misses like that one, and I look forward to Wang’s next attempts.

Nevertheless, the fact that my chief complaint is that Wang did not surpass Ravel should demonstrate what class of opera this was. The production, too, was very strong. Directed by Maria Tucci and conducted by Salvatore Percacciolo, the cast was demonstrative without descending into self-parody (important, when you need to keep people entertained during what’s essentially an hour-long court proceeding). Likewise, the set (by Julia Noulin-Merat) and costumes (Lara de Bruijn) were realistic without attempting to be an exact replica of the Supreme Court’s chambers. Unfortunately, Overholt, though convincing as Antonin Scalia, was either hoarse the night that I heard him (July 17) or his voice could not fill the dead space of a festival tent (the fabric of which does a singer no favors). On the other hand, Wieser, who’s on her way to establishing a strong place on the touring circuit, simply soared.

It’s often fashionable to rate works more highly if they feature a fashionable cynicism. Scalia/Ginsburg, while not shying away from zingers, ultimately does not—which is good. There’s a time and a place for comedy as criticism; I would suggest the England in which Iolanthe appeared was one such. But considering the extent to which feelings are riled and battle lines divided over the Supreme Court right now, it’s helpful to remember that it’s an enduringly, endearingly American institution, our common property. Wang, in presenting a happy ending, fulfilled the Greek idea of comedy as a restorer of social cohesion. Even better, he manages to do this and yet still evoke real belly laughs from the audience. People could use a few—about the Court and much else.

Shale’s Greener America, Truck Fleet Edition

Companies across the U.S. are working to convert truck fleets from running on gasoline to using propane as a fuel source. The shale boom has led to a flood of propane production, creating both economic and environmental incentives for firms to make the switch, as Bloomberg reports:

“There’s a dramatic increase in the rate of adoption in fleets,” said Jeff Stewart, the president of Santa Rosa, California-based Blue Star, in a telephone interview. “It’s really the economic savings that people can achieve even compared to the lower gasoline prices.” […]

The change is propelled by a glut of propane from shale wells. It comes as prices for the fuel trade close to a 13-year low and are 75 percent cheaper than diesel. At the same time, propane offers an environmental gain, emitting 12 percent less carbon dioxide than gasoline at a time of growing global warming concerns.

A lack of widespread fueling stations is preventing propane-fueled vehicles from making inroads in the consumer market, but for companies that refuel in centralized locations, the infrastructure is a lower hurdle to clear, making propane a smart choice for companies operating truck fleets.

But propane isn’t the only way shale is affecting American transportation. Natural gas itself can also be used to power vehicles (you may have seen buses running on the fuel source in cities around the country), and, thanks to fracking, the U.S. has an overabundant and therefore relatively cheap supply of the energy source. The number of trucks running on compressed natural gas (CNG) has increased in recent years, and that market stands to grow in the future. Though much focus has been placed on liquifying our shale gas and shipping it off to customers abroad, cheap oil has crippled that market for American producers. As Gal Luft explains, that gas may find a better home here in the U.S., in part fueling truck fleets.Both propane and CNG entail fewer tailpipe emissions than gasoline, making them a green fuel choice as well as an economic one. At this point, it’s becoming hard to find an American industry that isn’t being affected by the shale boom.

Teacher Training Doesn’t Work

Taxpayers are spending vast sums of money on time-consuming teacher development programs that don’t actually improve teaching quality, according to a study conducted by The New Teacher Project. The Washington Post reports:

“We are bombarding teachers with a lot of help, but the truth is, it’s not helping all that much,” said Dan Weisberg, TNTP’s chief executive. “We are not approaching this in a very smart way. We’re basically throwing a lot of things against the wall and not even looking to see whether it works…”

The school districts that participated in the study spent an average of $18,000 per teacher annually on professional development. Based on that figure, TNTP estimates that the 50 largest school districts spend an estimated $8 billion on teacher development annually. That is far larger than previous estimates.

The conventional wisdom in many quarters is that to improve our education system, we simply need to boost education spending. But we’ve already tried that; education spending has gone up for years, and schools have used the money to add more administrators, more classroom aides, and more training programs. There is very little sign that any of this has done much good. American school districts typically overspend on things that don’t matter much while stiffing the things that really do.

Some of the most promising reform strategies would not necessarily require costly new programs. We should be encouraging smaller schools, more local competition, more parental choice, and more freedom for teachers to teach as they wish. At the same time, we should be cutting down on the number of education bureaucrats and scaling back meaningless teaching doctorates and masters programs. The savings could be used to boost the pay of effective teachers, and usher in a more competitive educational culture.

Brent Crude Slides Below $50

Brent crude, that benchmark price we most often use as a stand-in for the cost of a barrel of oil, is trading below $50, its lowest level since March and just a scant $4 away from its January nadir. That’s a far cry from its $106.85 price one year ago, but it also represents a retreat from what appears to have been a temporary rebound this spring. Reuters reports:

Brent crude futures were down 35 cents at $49.24 a barrel at 1319 GMT after dipping to $49.02 on Wednesday, the lowest since Jan. 30. U.S. crude was down 64 cents at $44.51 a barrel, just off an intraday low of $44.46.

“Prices are likely to consolidate or weaken further,” Carsten Fritsch, an oil analyst at Commerzbank, said. “The perception is that over-supply will be there for much longer.”

American shale production has contributed to an oil glut, and OPEC has refused to lower its own production to help stabilize the market. Instead, the cartel has pursued a Saudi-led strategy of keeping output at or near record levels in an attempt to fight for its share of a suddenly quite crowded market. With a flood of Iranian crude in the offing as the West prepares to lift sanctions, the world’s supply doesn’t seem to be tapering off anytime soon.

Crude buyers won’t be sorry to see this market retrenchment, but it’s a very different story if you’re trying to sell. In the U.S., shale wildcatters—a critical component of the fracking boom—are being forced to sell off oil fields, their most important assets, to stay afloat. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is planning to issue $27 billion in bonds by the end of the year to cope with plunging prices. For producers around the world, those heady days of $100+ per barrel oil are a distant memory.

Thai Junta Falls for China’s Beguiling Charms

We’ve written before that relations may be warming between China and Thailand, but we didn’t mean it as literally as Thailand’s foreign minister seems to. The South China Morning Post reports on remarks by Thai General Tanasak Patimapragorn about Chinese FM Wang Yi:

“If I were a woman I will fall in love with his excellency,” he told reporters in English, much to the surprise of China’s top foreign envoy who appeared somewhat unsure how to respond.

The foreign ministers are currently attending a regional security meeting in Malaysia hosted by the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).General Tanasak, a close confidant of coup leader and now Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-Cha, made his remarks in response to a reporter’s question on Thailand’s diplomatic relations with China.“At this moment we believe this is the best time for our relationship. Especially for my personal contact with minister Wang Yi who is a very nice and polite person,” he said.It was then that he made his surprise declaration of love.

As the Thai foreign minister added in the press conference, for clarification: “Let’s say we are so close, we are more than friends, just say we are cousins with a long history together.”

Fun aside, China has been cultivating its relationship with Thailand’s junta, even as the United States has been pouring vinegar on its relationship with its all-too-public denunciations of a vital regional ally. And as we are seeing now, these kinds of things matter. Earlier in the week, several of ASEAN’s members, including the organization’s Secretary General, were pushing hard for the group to take a harder line on China’s behavior in the South China Sea. But they are running up against a wall of opposition from China’s allies in drafting a joint communique:

“China’s friends are taking a hard stance,” said one diplomat familiar with the drafting.

The diplomat did not specify which countries were taking a hard line, but Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar traditionally ally with China within ASEAN.The tug-of-war raises the specter of a 2012 ASEAN meeting hosted by Cambodia, when the bloc was unable for the first time in its four-decade history to issue a joint statement.Cambodia was accused of precipitating the debacle by refusing to allow criticism of China over its maritime territorial assertions.“China has already figured out how ASEAN works on the South China Sea, it knows how to divide us. Look at what happened in Cambodia,” one diplomat at the talks said.

Thailand is not mentioned by name in the reports, but with love so much in the air at this recent press conference, we wouldn’t be surprised if it were part of China’s sabotage party.

Renminbi Not Ready for Reserve?

An IMF staff report leaked on Wednesday indicates that the Fund has misgivings about declaring China’s renminbi ready for inclusion in the official basket of world reserve currencies (SDR), currently comprised of the dollar, euro, pound, and yen. The IMF reviews the composition of the SDR every five years, and a decision on the renminbi is due later this year. From the FT:

China’s leadership has been pushing for the addition of the renminbi, which would serve as recognition of the currency’s rising global status and a signal to the world’s central banks that renminbi assets are a solid investment. Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, has said the renminbi’s inclusion is a “matter of when, not if”. […]

“Across a range of indicators, the renminbi is now exhibiting a significant degree of international use and trading. At the same time, the four freely usable currencies (already in the SDR) generally rank ahead of the renminbi,” the IMF staff said in the report.

IMF Director Christine Lagarde has recently indicated that Beijing’s interventions in its volatile stock markets will not influence the decision. China’s conspicuous meddling in its markets has sent ripples through international stock exchanges and raised concerns over the country’s economic outlook.

Though the decision is supposed to be based on technical merits, a political compromise appears to be emerging that gives a nod to U.S. concerns: the IMF may choose not to allow the renminbi in at this review, but could revisit the decision by the end of 2016 rather than waiting until the next scheduled review in 2020. Such a course of action may incentivize China to enact policy reforms that the U.S. is urging, changes that would further liberalize its cross-border investment flows and domestic interest rates.

Dreams of Empire

On July 25, The Economist in its regular Asia section had two stories about religion in China. Both should be read in the context of the centralizing of power in the hands of Xi Jinping, who within just a few years has personally acquired the most important titles in the Chinese regime—General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (2012), President of the People’s Republic of China (2013), and Chairman of the Central Military Commission (2013). Still missing: Emperor of the Middle Kingdom, under the Mandate of Heaven. A modest suggestion: Just wait!

Not since Mao Zedong has so much power been vested in one man. Any hopes that some people may have had in a liberalizing of the regime under the ever-smiling Xi have been disappointed. The only liberalizing factor is that the growth-generating capitalist economy is allowed to roar on, just as long as the monopoly of power by the Communist Party is not challenged by any element of “civil society.” Domestically, lawyers and human rights activists have been harassed, the regime maintains its tight control over the media, the judiciary, and academia, and the ritual affirmation of Marxist ideology continues to be maintained (though it may be questioned how much this ideology has anything to do with classical Marxism—or is really believed by anyone). In foreign policy, China increasingly acts with the self-confidence of a rising power and seeks to extend its influence globally. It has enormously increased the claimed extent of its territorial waters, thus creating animosity and alarm among all other states bordering the South and East China Seas, especially Japan, which Beijing keeps challenging with provocative moves. Despite its proclaimed allegiance to a “peaceful ascent” (a very Confucian notion—as it that of a “harmonious society”), China is rapidly building up its military capabilities. This is quite openly explained as a challenge to America’s alleged “pivot toward Asia” (the U.S. is rudely described as a declining power in the Chinese media).The first Economist story describes growing the cult of Confucius, especially around his tomb in Qufu. This started some years ago in a sharp reversal of the official condemnation of Confucianism as a reactionary ideology (the condemnation reached its climax during the Cultural Revolution). Xi Jinping has explicitly endorsed this development in a statement put on a tablet at the Qufu sanctuary: “In the spread of Confucianism around the world, China must fully protect its right to speak up.” In 2014 Xi convoked a “collective study session” of the Politburo (the ruling body of the Communist Party) devoted to “Chinese traditional culture” (read: Confucian culture). Ever since, the poor Party officials have had to work hard to show a strong link between Confucianism and Marxism. This may seem like a challenging intellectual task, unless (as I tend to think) one actually translates Marxist concepts into the ritual formulas of Confucian li—which have no cognitive content beyond their ceremonial uses (that is, one correctly pronounces them regardless of what one actually believes about their relation to actual reality). (I will readily retract this interpretation if it is shown to be mistaken by a certified Sinologist!) Incidentally, the term “Confucian Institutes” has been used for some time by the international network of Chinese language schools (an exercise of China’s “civilizing mission”).Long before this political embrace of the classical sage there has an international scholarly movement called the New Confucianism. Its leading scholar has been Tu Weiming, who spent much of his academic career as a professor of Chinese philosophy at Harvard. He has now become the director of the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies in Beijing, which has become a major Confucian center. In the 1990s the government of Singapore, worried that there was no shared moral orientation for the great economic success of the city state, initiated a program to develop such a curriculum for its public schools. Given the religious diversity of Singapore’s population, the curriculum was to have Confucian, Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim components. Tu Weiming was one in a group of Western academics asked to help develop the Confucian curriculum; it had to be in English, since that was the only language understood by many children of the ethnic Chinese majority. As Tu Weiming has described this project, the government was surprised and disappointed by the fact that most Chinese parents opted for the Christian curriculum. Despite this outcome, the Singapore government has continued to advocate “Asian values”, at their core such Confucian principles as respect for authority, “filial piety”, hard work, honesty, and “human-heartedness.”The second Economist story deals with a further development of something I discussed in an earlier post on this blog—the anti-Christian campaign in the city of Wenzhou (which has the highest percentage of Christians, mostly Protestants, of any locality in China). It began with an order by the local authorities to remove all crosses from the roofs of churches—there was a veritable skyline of such crosses in the city known as the “Chinese Jerusalem”. Thus far about 1,200 crosses have been taken down. When some congregations disobeyed the order, entire church buildings were destroyed. Supposedly this was done because of violations of the building code, but statements by the provincial Party chief, known for his hatred of Christians, made clear that he wanted to reduce the influence of religion. There has been speculation as to whether this was only a local phenomenon or was directed by the central government. Given the centralization of power under the Xi Administration, it is hard to believe that he did not know about this and at least discretely approved of it. My hunch is that Wenzhou was to be a pilot project for a larger campaign to reduce the growth of Christians (it is estimated that there are now more Christians than members of the Communist Party). But there is a new wrinkle to this story: Previous harassments of Christians have focused on so-called “house churches”—that is, churches not registered and allowed by the authorities. But the Wenzhou campaign has also targeted the registered group. Now the two official bodies representing the registered churches—the Protestant Christian Council and the Catholic Patriotic Association—have sent an open letter to the provincial government sharply protesting the actions against all Christian churches, not just their own. Thus the Wenzhou episode may have a result opposite to the one intended—a consolidation of all Christians in opposition to a government policy.In terms of government policies, Christians have long been a special case. They are suspect because of their foreign provenance (especially the Catholics with their allegiance to Rome), and because some of them (especially Presbyterians) have actively supported democratization in South Korea and Taiwan. On the other hand they (especially Protestants) are deemed to be good for modern economic development. When a few years ago I had a conversation with the director of the State Administration of Religious Affairs in Beijing, I was intrigued when he approvingly quoted Max Weber on the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Also, Christianity has no links with possibly secessionist (“splittist”) ethnic groups, unlike Buddhism in Tibet and Islam in Xinjiang. The Chinese historical memory has a keen sense of the dangers of religious fanaticism, such as was expressed by the Taiping Rebellion in the late 19th century, which was led by a charismatic leader who called himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ, and which cost twenty million lives before it was suppressed by the so-called “Ever-Victorious Army”, commanded by Charles Gordon, a British officer ever since known as “Chinese Gordon” (he was later killed during the siege of Khartoum by the Mahdi, yet another religious prophet; Gordon himself was a Bible-reading Protestant not intimidated by all these religious maniacs). Again (with all due deference to others with better Sinological qualifications) I’ll express the hunch that the attitude toward religion of the present People’s Republic has deeply Confucian roots—the educated mandarin (in this case spouting the rhetoric of “scientific atheism”) regards all religion as superstitious nonsense, potentially dangerous, and best dealt with by a method of disease control. Above all it must not be allowed to establish alternate centers of power. Falun Gong, an essentially harmless practice of traditional Chinese tai chi combined with Buddhist-derived breathing exercises, drove the government into a paranoid reaction when a conference promoting this therapy managed to convene some ten thousand attendees in Beijing—without any government agency even knowing about it! Falun Gong has since then be designated an “evil cult” and a threat to public health, and has been brutally suppressed. It is not difficult to imagine the discussions of the pros and cons of Christianity going on today in the inner circles of Communist power, almost certainly involving the elite gathered around Xi Jinping.As readers of this blog know, I have a fervent belief in the value of comparisons. In this case I’m struck by the similarity between three countries in which I have been very interested—Xi’s China, Putin’s Russia, and Erdogan’s Turkey. Here we have three increasingly authoritarian regimes, with reasonably successful market economies, now using religion to legitimate their rule. Xi has found in Confucianism (as he understands it—Tu Weiming may disagree) a usable ideology for a synthesis of traditional culture and modernity. Putin has a deepening relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church, of great mutual benefit (the Moscow Patriarch blesses everything done by Putin, who represses religious rivals of the Patriarch). Putin also envelops the Kremlin in tsarist symbolism, and presents Orthodoxy as a bulwark against the moral degeneracy of the West. And the Erdogan Administration in Turkey can plausibly be perceived as a neo-Ottoman project. The late Israeli sociologist Shmuel Eisenstadt has coined the useful concept of “multiple modernities.” Western modernity is not the only possible model (Eisenstadt closely analyzed the Meiji regime in 19th-century Japan, which engineered a very rapid modernization process, while retaining many traditional cultural and religious features—some surviving to this day). Following Eisenstadt’s approach, one may look at the three aforementioned cases as efforts to construct, respectively, a Chinese, a Russian, and a Turkish model of modernity—each intended to contribute to the task of empire-building. (To say this is purely descriptive; it implies neither approval nor disapproval of these projects.)

Egypt Opens New Suez Canal

Egypt’s “New Suez Canal” extension project opened amidst great fanfare today. The $8.5B, largely self-financed project offers both symbolic and substantive hope for Egypt. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The 120-mile canal is already the fastest route between Asia and Europe and accounts for 8% of the world’s sea trade, according to the Suez Canal Authority. The canal’s improvements, including the building of a 23-mile parallel channel, will allow two-way traffic for the first time and reduce waiting times by as much as eight hours for ships traversing the waterway.

As the Journal makes clear, however, not everyone agrees on the long-term economic impact, largely due to disputes over the future volume of global shipping.

Nevertheless, the project is highly popular in Egypt. As one of our Middle Eastern contacts remarked to us, the Egyptians know that tourism can come and go, but the canal is forever. It also has huge symbolic, historical significance for Egyptian nationalism. It’s no surprise that the Sisi government decided to make much of this project—but it is somewhat surprising that it came in on time.

This won’t solve all of Egypt’s problems or turn the country around. But these days any positive news is welcome, and the project is a good sign, a rare ray of light for a country with many recent problems. It’s good news for world trade, and good news for Egyptians.

Russia Claims North Pole in Arctic Land Grab

Moscow just staked claim to the land of Santa’s workshop, if you believe that sort of thing. The Kremlin submitted a claim to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UNCLCS) that would expand Moscow’s Arctic holdings by some 463,000 square miles, using the informal-sounding Law of the Sea to assert control over a vast new swathe of territory on the grounds that it extends from Russia’s continental shelf. The New York Times reports:

Under a 1982 United Nations convention, the Law of the Sea, a nation may claim an exclusive economic zone over the continental shelf abutting its shores. If the shelf extends far out to sea, so can the boundaries of the zone. The claim Russia lodged on Tuesday contends that the shelf extends far north of the Eurasian land mass, out under the planet’s northern ice cap.

A similar claim was rejected by the UNCLCS 13 years ago, but Russia hopes new research from a fleet of vessels that has patrolled Arctic waters in the intervening years will produce a different outcome this time around. Moscow wants to get a leg-up on the other Arctic nations—Norway, Denmark, Canada, and yes, the U.S.—in a region scientists say is opening up as our planet’s warming surface temperatures melt its ice.

An ice-free Arctic will present a host of new strategic interests and concerns, not least of which will be the opening of new international shipping lanes. But we’d be remiss not to mention that the Arctic is estimated to contain 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves, a fact not lost on Russia—or Canada for that matter, which itself has already tried to extend its exclusive economic zone in the region. Who said the days of exploration and land grabbing were over?